It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…it was this past weekend

19 May , 2014

Nicola has not been a barrel of laughs this past weekend. In her defence she seems to be fighting off some low level flu-ish symptoms. This saw her waking up at 4:00am on Saturday morning – traditionally a time I enjoy spending quietly on my own, reading or whatever.

Firstly, on Saturday morning we did a bit of a quick scrub of our new place. Laundry catch up, mop and vacuum the whole place and so on. After that we headed out for the promised Emmarentia dam trip to go feed the ducks and to take Polka on a nice long walk.

Nicola fell asleep in the car, never a good sign because she’s guaranteed to wake up cranky as hell! Which is exactly what happened. I should have just turned around and gone home, but she woke up when we got there and I though…maybe…I really should have gone with my first instinct and turned around.

Three tantrums from the car to the gate (+/-20m). Anyhoo, once we got to the water she seemed to settle down somewhat. Polka, of course, was a BIG hit with the other people there. It was like walking along a path of “Aaawe” choruses. She was very excited and greeted everyone enthusiastically as far as we went.

After the duck feeding we sat down for a bite to eat. I had packed us a few snacks to picnic with along the way. The food was a big hit with Nicola, but not me. She insisted on eating by herself at the next table. Geeez! Have you ever had one of THOSE days? “Marvellous, just bloody marvellous”.

Eventually I thought we better get going, because if I was going to have to deal with the flu grumps, then I’d actually much rather do it at home. Also I had booked a parlour visit for Polka in the afternoon, so I hoped that if we rocked up early we could get that done and dusted and go sulk at home straight after.

Nicola, however, had other plans. She insisted that she wasn’t done walking and we needed to stay…and then proceeded to fall over the root of a tree and get her hand scraped up a bit. Full on hysterics! Luckily I had brought some water for Polka to drink if she needed to, so I had something to rinse her off with. So not f-ing doing that to myself again when the pink terrorist isn’t feeling on top of the world. I really should have just turned around and went home when she fell asleep in the car. There I was limping back to the car, carrying all our bags and Nicola and dragging Polka along (who had by now decided that she really wasn’t done walking and sniffing). Thank goodness it wasn’t too far to the car – my back wouldn’t have made it!

The mood somewhat improved by the time we got to the doggy parlour. Luckily they could help us almost straight away. I literally had time for a quick smoke outside and then they were done. Polka looked like a million bucks! They even managed to put a bow in her hair, hahaha! Poor thing…she wasn’t altogether thrilled with the parlour obviously. The main reason why I took her was to get her nails trimmed, because she wouldn’t allow me to do it at home. And while we’re there they might as well shave under her tail and clean up her ears a bit too. I was pleasantly surprised with what they charged me for this. R50. Not bad at all. Totally worth not having to pin her down and try that myself.

The grooming doesn’t last long though. This is the very next day. The rest of these photos are just because she looked so cute sleeping and I was mucking about with the auto focus on the phone to see how it works exactly.

It wasn’t all bad though; there were some genuine belly laughs in between. Nicola has discovered my Jenga, and wanted to play…I guess I better get a new family friendly one before she stars reading? 😉 We made a drinking game out of it when I was in CT, and some people have written some very interesting suggestions on the blocks over the years.

Shame, poor baby – she obviously wasn’t feeling well and then she gets dragged from pillar to post by her silly mother.

Another fun occasion we celebrated was my gran’s upcoming 82nd birthday. Pretty low key lunch as far as our family gatherings go, but it went well and I think my gran at least got an opportunity to chat to everyone there. Plus, my mom made my favourite for lunch, so I’m definitely not complaining.

She’s super adorable. 😀
Hahaha, yes I saw your wing treatment – I get that often. I actually have to permanently keep my phone on silent and disable the flash to get any good shots. I pretend I’m texting someone, not taking a photo.

Yip…and there are no worms that time of the morning out and about. I actually get more hours sleep now than pre Nicola. I used to go to bed at about 12:00 or 1:00-ish and then up at 5:00, now I’m lucky if I see 21:00 and I get up at 4:00. She WON’T sleep unless I’m sleeping too, so I just do the things I want to do when she’s sleeping in the morning instead.

It’s in Stubensvalley (Krugerrand Road 1062), I haggled with them on the phone because she’s so young – she doesn’t need a full groom yet, I actually just wanted her toenails done and her ears and bottom shaved a bit.

Very happy with how they treated her, I will definitely be going back – just need to find out what a full package will cost, but I’m thinking once a month is probably okay since we wash her every week at home and brush her daily.

Gosh…we do have a lot of the tantrums at the moment…and I guess we have quite a bit to go with Stefan being only two now. We had a quiet weekend. B has a new love interest and he lives in Patensie. So it seems as if we will have every second weekend to ourselves from now on…which is pretty cool.